Only winning the Europa League will save this squad

Last week, I wrote a positive piece for once. About believing and wanting to make this season a success, despite all negativity. Seven days later, Ajax are on cloud nine. We humiliated Schalke 04 in arguably the best European game from Ajax in the 21st century, and bounced back against SC Heerenveen to stay right behind Feyenoord on the league table. You could say, my positive approach sort of worked. But, since being positive is completely against my nature, I am going to start complaining again. Sorry in advance.

This squad might be my favourite Ajax-squad in my entire life. I was born too late to witness the majestic accomplishments of the nineties, so I’m new to this whole phenomenon of actually playing decent football. Which means I have the right to sort of lose my sh*t over this. I keep reminding people who actually lived through the Golden Years, how special this is, because their reaction is way too underwhelming for my taste.

I love the players we have this year, bar one or two. I adore Davinson Sánchez, Kasper Dolberg, David Neres (who is the lovely kind of bad sh*t crazy) and even Heiko Westermann has a special place in my heart. I would give my right arm for this team to stay together over the summer. To make Davy Klaassen stay one more year. To postpone the agony of having this team ripped together for twelve more beautiful months.

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We’ve all seen Match of the Day talk about us. We’ve all seen that wildly inaccurate piece by that British newspaper, calling Hakim Ziyech a winger and Arek Milik a playmaker. We are back on the market, not only in Holland but in the rest of Europe as well. And if we reach the semis, and god knows what beyond that, the attention will only grow. Clubs will be on edge. Players will leave. Sooner than we thought they would.

There’s only one solution to this whole problem: win the Europa League. By winning that thing we send out a message to the middle class of Europe: we are better than you, so stay off our players. Only Europe’s elite will be able to buy our players, and a lot will decide to stay one more year to experience life as a Europa League winner. We will be able to strengthen the squad with better players and we will help the Eredivisie grow a little bit. It’s the only way to prevent this summer from being pure and utter hell.